Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I'm a little confused by this debate. I'm not the most sophisticated person in the world, but if you have an increase, and then you decide to reduce the size of that increase, it's still an increase.

You know, when you cut down to the chase, look, I think this is the question. Yes ask the American people, is the Federal Government so efficient, so perfect that it cannot absorb a slight reduction in the size of the increase, because it's so efficient that every single penny is used perfectly, and, therefore, a reduction in the size of an increase, oh, is devastating because we have such a perfect Federal Government that we can't even reduce the size of the increase?

Now, again, I'm not real sophisticated, but back home, if you get an increase, or you say I want a 10 percent increase, and if you have a real job, a normal job like most Americans, and they go to their bosses and say, hey, I would like a 5 percent increase in my pay, and the boss says, I can't give you a 5 percent, I'm going to give you a 4 1/2 percent, is that a cut in salary, or is that an increase in salary, but half a percent less than what you asked for?

And again, if we thought that the Federal Government was so good, so efficient and so perfect that it can't absorb that, then don't support this amendment. But if you think that the Federal Government may be just a little bit imperfect, they might waste just a tiny bit of money, but maybe there's just a little bit of money that we could use elsewhere, then I would suggest, I'm not going to get into the rhetoric on the math, but again, if you think that the Federal Government could maybe absorb a little bit less of an increase, then this is a very modest decrease of the size of the increase.

I thank the chairman.

Source